


In The Between

by wisdomeagle



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Community: giles_ficathon, F/M, Philosophical Differences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-08
Updated: 2005-03-08
Packaged: 2017-12-16 19:05:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomeagle/pseuds/wisdomeagle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When worldviews collide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inlovewithnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/gifts).



Giles cleared his throat a few times before announcing his presence; when the people gathered in the hotel's foyer looked up, he was feeling impatient.

"Willow informed me," he started, then thought better of it. "I have been informed that my assistance is needed."

"Nope," said the black man who was idly tossing a dagger from hand to hand. "Who are you, anyhow? And what's Willow got to do with anything? We got Angel's soul back, and let me tell you I'm grateful for that, but that's that. The end of the line."

"Charles." The woman's voice was soft and she put a hand on his arm before snatching it away in fear. "It's all right, Giles. Willow said you might be coming to give us a hand with some of the research about this big... thingie... that's coming to eat us all."

Giles glanced outside. "You seem to have restored the sun without too much difficulty. I'm not entirely sure why you need my help, but Willow was insistent, so here I am."

"She can be awful persuasive, can't she?" Giles noted that the mood suddenly got frostier; Charles moved further away from the woman he now realized must be Fred. "She was just so nice when she came here; I don't know how y'all managed to spare her for so long. Not that we aren't grateful, mind!"

"Horribly grateful," said a bored voice from the stairs, and Giles started. He hadn't heard that voice since Buffy and her friends had graduated from high school, and that was nearly four years, now.

"Cordelia," he said, stiffly.

"Giles." The years had not been good to her; the clever chirp and the sarcasm had both left her, and the woman who now descended the stairs looked tired and angry and sad. She was also very, very pregnant. He nodded at her briefly, considered a hug, and decided it wouldn't be proper.

"Miss Burk--"

"Oh, Fred, please. If anyone called me Miss Burkle, I'd get so flustered I wouldn't know which way was up." Fred threw her hands up and pushed at non-existent glasses; Giles felt a pang of sympathy.

"Fred, then. Perhaps you'd better fill me in. I assume that, er -- Wesley -- has an adequate supply of books?"

If the room had grown frosty at the mention of Willow, it grew downright frozen at Wesley's name. Giles realized that except for sporadic and usually desperate telephone calls, he hadn't seen Wesley Wyndam-Pryce since he'd seen Cordelia.

"Of course," Fred said, obviously faking a smile. "Come over here by the phones; we've got all the research laid out. You can just take a peek at it, work your librarian magic, and poof! Baddie destroyed."

"That's how Willow described it, is it?"

"Well... not exactly. But I figure if you can't learn it in books, who can?"

Giles smiled wanly. "I'm not exactly trained for this kind of work, you know. I'm just a very over-educated librarian."

"So'm I," Fred said, dragging him over to a pile of papers covered in scrawls that looked like a combination of Limthorian and Sumerian. "My research notes." Giles peered more carefully.

"Ah, that is English, isn't it?"

Fred blushed. "Mostly. Wesl -- people are always saying I need to work on my handwriting. But I figure if they can't read it, then the demons can't read it. And then Wolfram & Hart won't get their hands on it, and you know what could happen if they got their claws on the wrong kind of information."

Giles recalled the brief lecture on the legal system of the demon world he'd been forced to attend fifteen or twenty years before. "Yes, I suppose I do."

"So, I suppose we'd better get back to work. You start here -- if that's okay. I hate to be all pushy, but we're really kinda desperate, or else you wouldn't be here."

They worked throughout the afternoon, with people occasionally passing through the lobby on their way upstairs. He hadn't encountered Angel, for which he was grateful; he'd promised Buffy he'd not make a scene, but he suspected that any encounter with Buffy's former lover would only lead to recriminations and pain. Fred answered the telephone a few times, calls from clients, and one from her parents, to whom she lied cheerfully and at great length.

"Your parents don't know, then?"

"Oh, they know," Fred said. "They're the ones who helped convince me this was the life for me. But they don't, well, _know_. Not how bad it's gotten. I wouldn't want them to."

"You're protecting them," Giles realized, and Fred nodded. None of the children would have dreamed of lying to protect him, he thought, then immediately wondered if perhaps they _had_ lied. What did he really know about the lives they had when he wasn't looking?

Fred shuffled an enormous pile of books from one side of the counter to the other, clearing a space for her notes. She'd only just finished when a demon, Pylean at first glance, whistled its way into the lobby.

"Freddie-darling! Just the librarian I was looking for. I've got a friend from two zip codes north looking for an in in LA."

"I don't really think I've got the connections you're looking for," Fred said, and Giles relaxed his grip on the stake in his pocket. "What kind of job are they looking for?"

"You wouldn't happen to know of any college students looking for a no-fail pick-up line? Unemployed matchmakers are the loneliest people."

"Sorry Lorne... I'm really not too well acquainted with the locals. I'd say ask Cordy, but, you know..."

"Don't I. Say, who's handsome?"

"Lorne, this is Giles. He's the friend Willow sent from Sunnydale to help out."

"Ah, so you're unraveling the mysteries of Los Angeles. Good luck with that, pal. Toodles, sweetie." It left, humming another song.

Giles took a minute to collect himself, and reminded himself that Willow and Buffy had both told him that the way Angel Investigations was run was none of his business. Of course, he suspected that if Buffy were here, she wouldn't hesitate to say her piece if Angel turned out to be doing things not to her liking. Still, Buffy had learned a few things about leadership in the past year; perhaps she'd matured more than he wanted to think about.

"Giles? You okay? You look sort of dozy."

"Forgive me, Fred. It's been a long day. Would you -- would you care for a meal? I'm sure that you'd be happy to get out of this place for a few hours."

"Wouldn't I just," she said, donning her coat before Giles even had a chance to stand up. "I've hardly been out of the hotel in days. Even Wesley gets to go home to sleep. Or sleep _with_..." She trailed off.

+++

Giles wasn't sure how old Fred was, but he'd been buying drinks with Buffy's friends for years, so he didn't bother with ID, just ordered a bottle of wine for the both of them. There really wasn't time for luxuries, not if the apocalyptic legends he'd been reading were any indication, but five years in Sunnydale had taught him that relaxation was sometimes imperative. It was refreshing, in any event, to be away from Sunnydale, where there was nowhere to stay but a house full of young women, all scared, all loud, all needing to be taken care of. An evening at a restaurant with a woman who wasn't unattractive was more than welcome, especially since she seemed old enough to take care of herself.

"So," Fred said, taking her first sip of wine, "tell me all about them!"

"Whom?" He prayed she didn't mean the Potentials.

"You know... the Slayer. And Willow. Willow got home okay, right?"

"She got home fine."

"I want to know everything... Willow told me some, but there wasn't near enough time, and it was all business with her, you know. I mean, we're all tired; we've been working as hard as anyone. But I'd think she'd at least want to talk..."

Giles looked at her. "We _are_ all busy. If Willow didn't want to pursue a friendship with you, I'm sure she had a good reason."

"I guess... I'm not exactly used to anyone wanting to be -- friends -- with me."

"I find that quite hard to believe."

Fred took a roll and started buttering it; Giles considered doing the same, but he wasn't really hungry, not for bread and butter.

"You don't like the way we do business at Angel Investigations, do you?"

"I admit, it's not what I'd expected. I'd think Wesley would know better."

"It's not exactly like Wesley's around much to have a say."

"Wesley is -- was -- a Watcher. Classically trained, as I was. When I knew him, he was... he was a very proper young man. Hardly the sort who would allow demons in rhinestone suits in the lobby of his hotel."

Fred's face broke into a smile. "You don't like Lorne? He's just... he's Lorne. He's a nice demon, the nicest demon you'll ever meet."

"I'm sure that's true," Giles said.

"Besides, Wesley's not exactly a paragon of moral virtue these days, anyhow."

"Wesley has an interesting way of defining morality," Giles said, thinking of Willow. Of course Wesley had been absolutely correct; sacrificing Willow might well have saved Sunnydale. It would have been for the greatest good, and he'd spent many years trying to remind himself that the greater good was indeed his ultimate concern. Even so, he had difficulty sympathizing with the man Wesley had been.

"She wasn't even all that pretty, either," Fred said, taking a vicious bite out of her roll. "Not like Wi-- some other people."

Giles felt the familiar sensation of confusion that his young friends usually inspired in him. He didn't want to gossip, but, well -- he took another sip of wine.

"You're referring to Cordelia?"

Fred spit out her wine. "Cordy? And Wesley?" She laughed. "Not hardly. Although, that's less icky than Cordy and... eeeugh."

"What?" Now he'd really committed himself.

"It's a long story."

It was indeed a long story. There was jealousy over appetizers, betrayal during the soup course, near-incest over shrimp and steak, and for dessert, Fred's own breakup with Charles Gunn. Before she was half-finished with her story, Giles wished he'd told Fred no, not really, another time. At the same time, he was fascinated. Angel and Wesley and Cordelia... he'd once known them. He and Wesley had read the same books, sat the same tutorials, revised for the same exams. He'd read more books about Angel than he had about Spike, and yet he truly didn't know any of them, not the way Fred did.

"Tell me why you stay," he said. "If it's truly as bad as all that."

"Bad?" Fred looked up, puzzled, from her ice cream sundae. "It's not all that bad. I mean, not always. Sure, things have been a little down lately, but that's just because there's giant lurking evil trying to screw us all over and probably send Angel to hell in the process. It's not _normally_ like this at all."

"I see."

"Besides, it's... it's right. Helping Angel? Saving people's lives? It's just the right thing to do. I couldn't run back to Texas and cry to Mommy, no matter how much I wanted to, because they need me. Connor needs -- well, a good whipping, but he needs someone to talk to, and Wesley probably needs someone to talk to about how that sk -- how Lilah died, and you know, they just need someone who's not entirely 'round the bend. And that's me."

"I suppose it must be... but Fred, does it _have_ to be you?" It had to be Buffy. It had be him. It had to be Angel, he was willing to concede. Some people had duties that transcended personal desires -- but Fred wasn't one of those people.

"Well, of course not... except... we're all working for the Powers. Don't you think that maybe we're doing it for a reason?"

Giles took a last bite of his dessert and instinctively reached for his glasses. "The powers?"

"They chose us, didn't they? They chose _me_. So even if I didn't love it, even if I didn't love Angel and Cordy, I'd have to do it."

Giles felt as if a windowpane had been erected between them, full of distortions. When they'd been researching together, he'd understood her, full stop, despite the handwriting, but now something had come between them, some belief, some understanding that was alien to him.

"We've all got a place in the world. That's what Wesley always says -- always said. That there's some plan, someone out there who's trying to make things right. That's why Angel was willing to become Angelus again, and that's why Cordy's back at the hotel, even though she's so confused and alone. Because that's the way the world is supposed to be."

He wanted to argue, wanted to tell her she couldn't, she shouldn't. He wanted to take her out of the hotel more badly than he'd ever wanted to turn Buffy's friends out of the library. Then the issue of those not chosen fighting side by side with the Slayer had been theoretical. Now he knew the cost. A shudder overtook him as he recalled Willow, face pale, telling him what the doctors had said about Xander's eye. He'd failed his children, but Fred could still be saved. "You don't have to. You could go back to working at the library, go back to your studies. There's no need for --"

"But I'm still doing all that," Fred said, smiling broadly and making Giles want to grind his teeth in anger that someone so beautiful, so bright, so obviously meant for something other than the grime of demon-fighting, should be so deluded, so caught up in the ugly life that he would never have chosen. "I wouldn't want to do anything else."

"Come back to my hotel with me," Giles said suddenly, summoning a waiter. "Just for tonight, get away from the Hyperion and your research."

Fred looked dubious. "I only just broke up with Charles," she said. "It wouldn't be right."

"Nothing in the world is right. An unstoppable evil is probably going to destroy Sunnydale in a few months, and if it does, it will probably take the rest of the world after. Your evil might not be worth fighting if the First wins." He took a breath, troubled. He'd never before confessed aloud his uncertain he was about the battle they were losing in Sunnydale. "Just tonight."

"Just tonight," Fred said. She was still smiling, but Giles thought he saw a quiver of hesitation in her face.

"Yes sir?" The waiter had finally answered his summons.

Giles glanced at Fred, put one hand on top of hers reassuringly, and nodded at the waiter. "Check, please."

**Author's Note:**

> Someone pls write the hot librarian hotel sex remix?


End file.
